bossman

@jamesfed: @Sylv3r has just had an installation of CC4 which is totally virtualised utilising Server 2008R2 and he is mighty impressed with it. Why is it

Ditto plexer's response as they are so expensive to run it is better to purchase your mugs with your design on from online companies. I looked into this a few years back as the school was looking at producing pencils, pens, mugs and T-shirts but decided after a cost analysis it would be cheaper to purchase them from an external.

@Dos_Box: I would say that this is probably one of only 10% of all the BSF projects which has a happy ending, I would like to see after the first 5 years how it is managed, as you say the budget was a one off and therefore the when there is no money in the pot to maintain what they have it will deteriorate dramatically. I cannot advocate the use of laptops as these devices are so high maintenance, yes the students and teachers love to be able to carry them around as their own personal kit but they don't last very long in the hands of both. I'm not saying it doesn't work, what I am stating is the constant cost to maintain the equipment to the standard to which the new kit performs is taking a large chunk of the school budget year upon year. Good luck to those BSF schools who got it right from the off but so many got it wrong due to the shear greed of the consultants and the companies involved in the process. It has also been mentioned that the PFI solution which has been used throughout the country has been a costly disaster due to not being managed properly by those in charge of the funding. Thanks to Dos_Box and Ric for this report and I look forward to another in 5 years time to see how the solution stands up

@SC92: @AntonioRocco: We have an RMCC4 network here and the login times are just seconds for everyone and once their profile is on the workstation it is almost instant. It must be something to do with your user permissions or your setup. I would think that it will be configurable.

@Dos_Box: Found this online conversion tool for all types of maps wondered if was of any use GPS Visualizer

@doombadger: Have just run a general report in Office 2010 pro plus and it has ran alright except that it is in compatibility mode. This is as an office admin test account which has very little access rights. Another report in Office Excel 2010 comes up with the Macro enable tool but once clicked works absolutely fine. I am sure it is permissions based on your installation, when you built the Office package did you use the OCT which creates the MSP file for custom install of the Office package? That is all I can think of at this moment is that for ordinary users they do not have the Macro tools enabled in both Office 2010 word or excel.

@aac: How have you got your BDE setup on your clients? Have you got the lockdir setup on your server in the Sims shared folder correctly and do the BDE on your clients reflect this? As for the Sims.ini Have you got the correct version and is it in the Windows dir on the Sims server?

Yeah you right @FN-GM having a late night enema last night hehe! :0

@tech_guy: You say that they are their own laptops which I would presume are not built onto the network? If this is the case then could you not through each printer properties in the security tab take out the everyone can print and set up groups through the AD i.e. staff and student groups which would only allow network printing? if you have already thought of this then I apologies for wasting your time. We have this done this at our school so that only the staff from each subject can print from the subject printers in their classrooms. I don't know if this will work for your situation but it is worth a try. Let me know what you think and if it works for you.

Have you herd the soul classic "Up the ladder to the roof" its real moosic and head and leg above everything else.................................Udderly rung me head in!!

@Michael: I have been at our school for the past 10 years and in this time have been involved with all aspects of its design and implementation from the very start. I designed the total infrastructure and the network which sits on top of it from scratch. Having been Microsoft trained to MCSE 2003 level in 2006 I could have gone down the Vanilla route and could still go down this route if I so required but have not found it necessary. In our 10 years of operation we have had endured to date just 4 hours of downtime and of this 3 hours was actually the Sims server RAID config which only stopped the staff from using the Sims. We migrated to a Windows 7 platform just last February in 9 days which included virtualisation of most servers and rebuild of all clients and a move to RMCC4 servers. We know that some other users on this forum are taking up all of their schools 6 weeks holidays to do this on a Vanilla system and whilst this is taking place the network is unusable. I'm not saying that there is one system which is better than any other just putting into words what we have achieved over the past 10 years. I have to re-iterate when I say its not what system you are using but what is the end result for your end users that counts. Technical staff can be retrained again and again to run the systems which fulfils the criteria which the school requires. You would probably benefit from training up on RMCC4 it might add another string to your bow and also some Capita skills might not go amiss. I feel your very happy with Microsoft software as am I its just that I like to do other things with my time instead of constantly creating scripts and batch files for deploying applications and files (not that I condemn it) I have enough to do besides with Sims, FMS, Parental access, remote desktops, VLE etc etc. I wish you well with all your Vanilla networks and I do mean that sincerely. P.S. I know you get stuck sometimes, have read your post on KMS server and client deployment problems. Took me just over an hour to build KMS server and the Office Pro Plus 2010 client app, deploy and test successfully all on a RMCC4 network not bad eh!

@Ric: Well you have finally done it! Good luck and when you get sorted we will have to come down for a visit as long as you can put us up

Pleased you agree with me on this but if the technical staff have the required training and skills which you are so adept at pointing out then there should be no need for that technical person to spend any time at all on the phone. RM also have a knowledge base which you are able to access when you purchase their software just like Microsoft and it is also free. Like Microsoft if you require any technical help then it costs which is the same for any service. Printer management software, various which doesn't always work with the latest printers and drivers. Pray tell me what are the legitimate reasons for paying twice for technical people and also LA SLA's, surely if the technical staff have the required training and experience then there is legitimately no reason for it. I do all the MIS upgrades and the Microsoft upgrades etc plus the RM stuff as well and we have no SLA's here and we don't ring RM up and ask for technical help as we have no SLA with them either. I can, it is because of technical people getting too involved with their own requirements rather than the end users requirements which has led to these different installations costing valuable time and money. Technical people can be retrained on various software and hardware far cheaper than end users. We must beg to differ then as I see it a necessary requirement to make sure that the end user is fully catered for and not the directions of the technical staff albeit that they will be taken into account when doing a system analysis before initialising the project. We have never had any problems with software management and deployment with either CC3 or CC4 whereas I have heard quite a few people having problems deploying with Vanilla systems. I do value your input michael and I do hope that you see both sides of the facts.

@bodminman: The wife and I have had cats ever since we got married, Maine Coons were our favourite, dark chocolate brown with long beautiful fur. First one called Cassey was so beautiful yet so vicious, she would only let you stroke her when she wanted it bless but she was ours for 6 years then she got run over so we decided to get another one, instead we ended up with 2, brother and sister Maine Coons again, Sam and Sophie we called them, again Sam was so loving and would go down the hill to the next village to tom about but whenever i wanted him to come in I would stand at the top of the hill and whistle, he would come hurtling up the bank at full speed meowing all the way. Sophie was the shy one and some what smaller in statue but never the less was full of love until our children came along and our son at 4 would not stop chasing her around the house, he used to shout sobas! sobas! (he couldn't say sophie) she got fed up and decided to move next door after they enticed her in with food. Anyway Sam got run over at about 8 years old but our Sophie (we have just lost her) lived to the grand old age of 22. We have taken on another cat called Kizzie who was taken in by the RSPCA after druggies had her from a kitten and sorely abused her, she was then taken from the rescue home by a young lady and kept for 8 years until her now husband wanted to move in with her but having a cat phobia it wasn't possible so my wife who works with the young lady said we would have her for 2 weeks while they went on holiday, 2 years later and lots of TLC as she would not let anyone touch her without clawing their hand off and she is the most loving cat we could ever have had. I really feel for you when this happens but just remember the good times and all will be well and if you can get another (not to replace) but one from the cat rescue centre (when you are ready) and you will always remember every cat you have nurtured. I hope this has not bored you but you brought back so many good memories I just had to share, thank you. My condolences to you for your loss

@bossman

@Michael: Time is money in the business world and if you can cut this down then you are actually saving money for that company, the IT team can then concentrate on developing the end users experience which also helps the company make even more money by saving even more time from working smarter, not learning how to utilise apps which are difficult to use and require masses of training, these can be simplified and create even more profit for the company involved. With a Vanilla system there are requirements for management tools which are not always free and don't always work to the advantage of the end user. I have seen all kinds of management tools which on analysis have not been worth the money as the end product has not always delivered. If whatever system you commission develops that particular company, gives the end user the feel good factor, which in turn helps create that companies end product at a fraction of the cost then this is the required result. Its how this is managed strategically for future growth and development and if this is not attained then the company fails. Schools require stable 24/7/365 systems and this can be whatever system works best for the school in question, if schools require SLA's from external companies then this is what takes the costs higher, paying for a third party to manage your systems, why do schools pay good money for technical people then pay for SLA's from either the LA's or other third parties this is a question I often ask myself. I have known other schools and businesses spend absolute fortunes on systems only to change them a couple of years later at great cost because of bad technical advice. A school in question from our County has had 5 new systems over the past 10 years including 2 managed services and the HT and SLT are still not happy with the results. The answer to the initial question is: You design the system based around the end users needs and requirements not what the technical staff require as they can be trained to deliver whatever system is designed for that particular business whether educational or private.

@Michael: You are right in your assumptions that most people on this forum are Microsoft trained and yes RM managment software does integrate with the Vanilla installation but in the same way as other management software does i.e. Impero, Ranger, CSE, etc. The RM management system is usually a little behind the latest Microsoft technology but still utilises the basics, AD, DHCP, DNS, WSUS and WDS, as for those people who have had problems using it then all I can say is that you haven't got the infrastructure nor the installation setup correctly. I would have gone down the Vanilla route myself had it offered me anything different by way of managing the school network any better or quicker for that matter and also the cost was a factor which I have mentioned in other posts. @thomaspark: All we can do is give you the constructive benefit of our experiences so you can make the choice. You have already said that you would prefer to go down the Vanilla route so what has made you change your view and ask the question?

@acc: The whole reason we setup remote desktops was for security and in such allowing the staff access to all their apps but not being able to use both printing and USB drives of any sort so any information from the Sims or FMS could not be taken off the system plus we disabled the e-mail so they could not use this also for security reasons. I did install the windows XPS printer to allow the staff the ability to create and run reports but that is all. Pleased you got it sorted

@acc: Will be in at work tomorrow so I should be able to look at it in greater depth and give you a better picture. Stay tuned hehe!

@aac: Are your users setup to use a shared folder on the admin MIS server for access rights and also have you setup the local BDE settings to point to this share on the server? I will look into this again as I had exactly the same problem and it's all to do with windows permissions. I think there is a solution on the Sims Capita website if I'm not mistaken?

@thomaspark: It's entirely your decision is it not? You already have CC3 so it will be the cost of an upgrade license for your clients, how many do you have? As for your servers you can go down the virtual route now with your servers being 2008R2, a good friend of mine and a fellow edugeeker has gone down this route his addy is @Sylv3r he will give you the costings for his school which is quite a large RC secondary. As for your client machines, well you don't have to purchase them from RM as you get a perfectly decent spec unit with TFT monitor hard glass for around £395 with a 5 year warranty to boot. We only purchased the software from RM and commissioned the servers ourselves through a third party the only hardware we purchased from RM was the NAS box, LT04 auto loader and a Hitachi 6Tb SAN for user storage and all this came at cost price which saved us a fortune. You will still have to purchase the licenses for your Vanilla network Servers and clients which will cost so the choice is yours to make. I did look at the costings of both and you will be surprised that the RM coatings came out cheaper for us and since we migrated to the CC4 platform with Windows 7 clients we have not looked back it has been excellent. if you need any more info just PM me or @Sylv3r

@webman: I thought I was the one that didn't read everything thoroughly? hehe! Good to know your only human after all and not a PHP android

@jamesfed: I would be tempted to uninstall the BE agent on the server and re-install with the latest after updating the BE server via liveupdate from the tools in the console. It does seem to me to be an agent issue although the Tanberg unit has been frought with bugs (Check for the latest drivers on this also) Good luck

@adhutton: Here have a look at this: Cisco - IOS Tutorial Hope this helps

@KWestos: Totally agree, that's what we do here, the user has to log in before they get the AUP agreement if they choose not to accept they are then logged out. Staff and students are in total agreement and are very happy about it being like this.